Nightmare
by Tmae3114
Summary: In the dark of night, in the middle of a war, it's just a bit too easy for one's fears to creep up on a sleeping mind. The memory of someone forcibly taking control of your body away from you... that's not something that goes away easily. (Sys-Zero has a nightmare about the nanovirus)


_It's dark. It's dark and he's alone and it's dark. Dark is bad. Alone is bad. His heart is in his throat and his chest at the same time, beating so, so fast._ _ **Thump thump thump.**_ _He's inside somewhere and he shouldn't be inside. He's scared and his blood is rushing in his ears like a river. Something is very wrong and it's dark and he shouldn't be here._

 _He's outside. There's a light. It's the moon, high above him in the sky. He looks up and the stars are there, twinkling gently. It's a full moon and the light is soft and friendly and cheerful._

 _And then it isn't. He blinks and the moon is_ _ **gone.**_ _There is rubble floating in the sky in its place. Darkness blacks out the stars._

 _There is still light. It is not good light._

 _He is in Soluna and it is under siege. There is no light from anywhere but the flames roaring around them from attacks by the Shadowscythe. He is leading people against them, fighting the invaders. The students of G.E.A.R.S against the Shadowscythe._

 _Somewhere in his heart he knows that there are no SDF with them. None. Because the moon is gone and those against Slugwrath with it. They're gone all gone but they can still fight against the Shadowscythe-_

 _And then. No._

 _It's is not the Shadowscythe he is fighting. The allies and the foes have switched. It is the face of a student on the other side of the energy blade now._

 _ **No no no.**_ _This is not what happens!_ _ **No!**_ _He presses his own blade forwards, a cruel smirk on his face, and the student looks panicked and_ _ **who is it who is it who is it?**_ _Their features are blurred and indistinct but he_ _ **knows**_ _it is a student. Someone he is supposed to protect and care for._

 _His body doesn't listen to him. It doesn't respond to his will. It responds to another's. The Shadowscythe's._

" _Soluna will fall," a voice hisses and it sounds like his own and like garbled gurgling alien speech in his ears as his body starts to stop listening to him "Soluna will fall easily-" the blade of the student slips and suddenly he has a deactivated blade in one hand and a tight grip on their neck in the other. The hilt of his blade presses up against their stomach. "-to its_ _ **trusted hero,"**_

 _The indistinct face is suddenly one five ten a hundred distinct faces all at once_ _ **Warlic Jaania Casca Xaria Anastasia Denara Tsuba Twang Sally River Starbuck Alesia Hero**_ _and his thumb presses down on the ignition of his blade-_

And he awakes from the nightmare like a man drowning.  
Not, as one would expect, flailing and gasping for air, but deadly still, eyes open and somewhat glassy, almost unseeing, lungs desperately gulping in what air they can get.

It lasts for all of five seconds before his chest _heaves_ with a deep breath and he jerks upright, pulling his pillow out from behind his head as he does so. He draws his knees up to his chest, puts his pillow behind them, buries his face in it and _screams._ His arms are wrapped around his knees and he screams and screams into the pillow so that the sound is muffled. His shoulders shake and liquid stains the fabric.

Eventually, there is nothing left in him to scream _with._ He slowly straightens up, puts the pillow back, swings his legs over the side of the bed.

His bare feet feel cold against the floor. He reaches over to the lamp slowly, feels the cold, sharp sting of metal against his skin, turns it on. The light is sudden and bright and burns his eyes, but it is a welcome pain because it is not _that_ light and now it is not dark.

He flexes a hand in front of his face, wiggles each finger one by one. He taps his toes against the floor. Everything responds how and when he wants it to. Nobody controls his body but him.

Wearily, tiredly, fearing what he will see, he looks to the clock.

 _01:07_ the green numbers blink cheerily at him.

One hour and forty three minutes since last time he looked at it. One hundred and three minutes.

 _On average, it takes ninety minutes to enter REM. Most dreams occur in this stage of sleep._ chimes a voice in his head that sounds like Helia.

He sighs and then pushes himself up to stand. Cold night air winds around his legs but he ignores it. He yawns, brushes the hair out of his face, and heads to the kitchen.

He grabs the mug sitting upside down on a dishtowel off of the table and fills it with milk. He debates with himself for a moment after sticking it in the microwave and setting the time, and then decides to grab the cocoa from the cupboard.

He shovels two heaped spoonfuls into the steaming milk, stirs it around, and gulps it down.

He rinses the mug out at the sink, along with the spoon, and then sticks both on the dishtowel already on the table. He doesn't put the cocoa away.

After all, he'll probably be back in the next few hours. Easier if it's just already out.

* * *

 **Sys-Zero's nanovirus infection is one of the most interesting things in the game, in my opinion. This was written because there's _no way_ that he didn't have nightmares after that. Seriously.**


End file.
